But I get turned around
And I mistake some happiness for blessing ...
--from "Faith My Eyes" by Caedmon's Call
Stress has been on the rise here for me lately (more about that here), and it's been manifesting itself in my body. As we get closer to meeting Ewan and finding out how this whole grand story will play out, I find myself living in anywhere but the present. I find myself wondering about the future, imagining the worst. I don't want to dwell there, but I have a hard time shaking the thoughts of "What if?"
All the "what if" is taking its toll. I don't want to live there -- I know it's not good for any of us. But I'm not sure how to acknowledge it and not feel the effects of it.
James and I have been talking a lot lately about this pregnancy and how our appreciation for and experience of it has been heightened by what we know of Ewan's heart. Both knowing we wanted children, we remained intentionally open to the possibility from the earliest days of our marriage. After eight months, we began to wonder if we would be able to have a child of our own or not. Were it not for the positive pregnancy test that told us Ewan was on the way, we were going to start having some serious conversations about starting our family through adoption.
And then came those two little lines on that pregnancy test -- Ewan was coming.
After that period of time, I can't help but think of all the babies that could have been conceived, but God waited and gave us Ewan. There is something that seems very intentional to me on God's part about giving him to us -- knowing well before we did the story of his heart, and choosing him for us -- choosing us on purpose for this, knowing what we would face.
We have talked about a lot of things here and one of those things is the idea of "blessing" and what people mean when they say "God is good." Typically people say they are blessed or affirm God's goodness when things are going well: someone receives the job promotion, the cancer is cured, an unexpected windfall is received just at the right time. It is very true things would not be possible without the hand of God.
But when I read the gospels and epistles, when I look at the lives of those considered heroes of the faith, those of the great cloud of witnesses, I see people who suffered tremendously. I think of those places where it says God disciplines those He loves, all the promises Jesus makes about the trials and sufferings we will endure, and how these are meant to shape us, chip away at us, burn off the dross in which we are drenched until Christ is revealed in us -- burning brightly. I think of what God asked of His holy ones: asking Abraham to sacrifice the son promised to him in his old age, asking Job to endure the loss of his livelihood, his health, and his family, asking Mary to sacrifice her reputation and her whole heart in receiving Jesus as her son.
Were these people not also blessed? It seems that if we seek to avoid suffering, if we seek only to find a way out of it, we are asking for the loss of the greater blessing -- we deny an invitation to the crucible where the holy are formed, where Hebrews 11 tells us we have a choice in regards to what our suffering does to us: we have the option of being put out of joint, or healed by what we suffer. Healed (I expand on that thought here). In a time and place where the "gospel of prosperity" (the idea that if you follow Jesus, you will be blessed with health, wealth, and happiness) is so alluring and pervasive, it seems so extraordinarily backwards. Even now, I long for the healing that is to be found only on the other side of this, and I long for it to come to an end: to hear that nothing is wrong after all.
But it would be wrong to turn down the blessing that this is and continues to be, and that I know will be. There is no doubt in my mind that I have yet to grasp what any of this really means -- that I have so far to go in terms of my ability to remain in the present, to acknowledge the possibilities without dwelling on those things that haven't happened yet. To embrace my total and utter powerlessness not as a hindrance, but as freedom -- as an invitation to fling myself wholly on the God of mercy, to walk the path of ruthless trust as the ancients did. To say -- no matter the outcome -- that the Lord gives and Lord takes away: blessed be the name of the Lord! and to mean it.
Not to mistake happiness for blessing. Without question, this is far and away the most difficult life experience I've ever faced -- I've never had anything hurt this much for this long. I've never felt so helpless, so powerless, so spiraling out of control. I've never cried this hard for this long. I've never felt so stuck, so hemmed in. I've never been so entirely broken.
But make no mistake: We are blessed. And God is good.
Showing posts with label Path Carving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Path Carving. Show all posts
16 September 2010
09 September 2010
Dispatches From a Dark Night
I know I write about this a lot. This is how I process through it, really. And I’m processing it again. But here it is: I really don’t know what faith looks like in this place.
It’s a sad reality that when I discuss our situation (and I’m sorry if you’ve heard about “our situation” from me a hundred times, but here’s the rundown: expecting a baby with a severe heart defect that will require surgery almost immediately after his birth, my husband’s lack of employment, not knowing how to pay our already-mounting medical bills or other basic expenses while I’m on unpaid maternity leave), some adopt what we’ve come to call a “Pollyanna” attitude about it. God will take care of you. Things are going to be okay. It will all work out. Let go and let God. If you have to go back to work two weeks after he’s born and still in the NICU, you should view it as a blessing in disguise. You can handle this.
While I appreciate the good intentions of those who offer these words, more often than not, all these attempts at simplicity and comfort manage to achieve is a minimization of our situation that infuriates me. Any one of these dilemmas would be bad enough, but the union of them all together makes for a thorny reality that none of us can brush aside. These words are band-aids on bullet holes, and it is in those moments I want to invite the people who say these things to inhabit my reality deeply for a time, to take upon themselves my thoughts and emotions and questions, to follow me into the closet when I close the door, fall on the floor, and fall apart completely, weeping from a depth that is bottomless. I wonder if they would be able to say those same things. I wonder if they heard those same words from someone else, if they would find them a warm blanket or a blast of cold.
We have faith. We have believed: in God’s provision, in His wisdom, in His timing. And we are still in a place where we don’t know how any of this is going to work out or in many instances, how we should act: we have no clear sense of whether or not we will even be one of the fortunate sets of parents who will come home with the baby they birthed, the baby whose movements they have felt and experienced for months on end, whose life they have witnessed squirming and stretching through his mother’s skin. This is a reality that we don’t dwell on, but must acknowledge. We cannot presume upon anything.
We are working, thinking, and praying with every last fiber and blood cell we have, wondering what God wants us to do. There are no promises about the outcome. There are no clear directives on what decisions to make. And it’s not because we haven’t been listening. We have been asking God and listening, interjecting our pleas and waiting. We are in a season where, like the mountain I sometimes see on my drive to work, God looms large in the distance, but is ultimately still and silent. I know, rather than feel, Him there. He is under a cover of clouds and veiled with an impenetrable an inky night. Job experienced this, mystic spiritual masters like St. John of the Cross wrote extensively about it, and recent saints like Mother Teresa lived it: the dark night of the soul.
I used to be afraid to say that that’s what this is. That’s for spiritual giants and I’m just a normal person. But now I don’t need to ask or question it or be afraid to call it what it is now, because I know. Dark nights are for normal people, too. Dark nights are those places where our ability to sense God in any way is gone, and where we are continually brought to the end of ourselves and asked to go still further. Where we feel like we have been stripped of everything we possess, and asked to give still more. God is deeply present in these dark nights, but in a way that is imperceptible to one in the thick of it.
It would be a mistake to say that there are not shafts of light that pierce the dark night – many moments of laughter, of profound joy as we prepare to embrace the mystery that is this child, that is parenthood. But it is joy that lives in the hollow of a crucible, in a place where layers of dross rise to the surface in the boiling heat and are skimmed off, in a place where we find the ends of ourselves again, and again, and again. And we know: we have deeper yet to go.
Perhaps these ends, these peelings away will increase our capacity for joy. Perhaps in coming to these ends we will learn to lean more fully into our invisible God, and come to know what it means to draw on His strength instead of defaulting to our own. Perhaps we will taste the faith the ancients did when they reasoned God could raise the dead and so held knives over their only children, when they stood in the blast of heat from a fire meant to incinerate their flesh and said, God can save us. But even if He does not, we will not bend the knee.
It’s a sad reality that when I discuss our situation (and I’m sorry if you’ve heard about “our situation” from me a hundred times, but here’s the rundown: expecting a baby with a severe heart defect that will require surgery almost immediately after his birth, my husband’s lack of employment, not knowing how to pay our already-mounting medical bills or other basic expenses while I’m on unpaid maternity leave), some adopt what we’ve come to call a “Pollyanna” attitude about it. God will take care of you. Things are going to be okay. It will all work out. Let go and let God. If you have to go back to work two weeks after he’s born and still in the NICU, you should view it as a blessing in disguise. You can handle this.
While I appreciate the good intentions of those who offer these words, more often than not, all these attempts at simplicity and comfort manage to achieve is a minimization of our situation that infuriates me. Any one of these dilemmas would be bad enough, but the union of them all together makes for a thorny reality that none of us can brush aside. These words are band-aids on bullet holes, and it is in those moments I want to invite the people who say these things to inhabit my reality deeply for a time, to take upon themselves my thoughts and emotions and questions, to follow me into the closet when I close the door, fall on the floor, and fall apart completely, weeping from a depth that is bottomless. I wonder if they would be able to say those same things. I wonder if they heard those same words from someone else, if they would find them a warm blanket or a blast of cold.
We have faith. We have believed: in God’s provision, in His wisdom, in His timing. And we are still in a place where we don’t know how any of this is going to work out or in many instances, how we should act: we have no clear sense of whether or not we will even be one of the fortunate sets of parents who will come home with the baby they birthed, the baby whose movements they have felt and experienced for months on end, whose life they have witnessed squirming and stretching through his mother’s skin. This is a reality that we don’t dwell on, but must acknowledge. We cannot presume upon anything.
We are working, thinking, and praying with every last fiber and blood cell we have, wondering what God wants us to do. There are no promises about the outcome. There are no clear directives on what decisions to make. And it’s not because we haven’t been listening. We have been asking God and listening, interjecting our pleas and waiting. We are in a season where, like the mountain I sometimes see on my drive to work, God looms large in the distance, but is ultimately still and silent. I know, rather than feel, Him there. He is under a cover of clouds and veiled with an impenetrable an inky night. Job experienced this, mystic spiritual masters like St. John of the Cross wrote extensively about it, and recent saints like Mother Teresa lived it: the dark night of the soul.
I used to be afraid to say that that’s what this is. That’s for spiritual giants and I’m just a normal person. But now I don’t need to ask or question it or be afraid to call it what it is now, because I know. Dark nights are for normal people, too. Dark nights are those places where our ability to sense God in any way is gone, and where we are continually brought to the end of ourselves and asked to go still further. Where we feel like we have been stripped of everything we possess, and asked to give still more. God is deeply present in these dark nights, but in a way that is imperceptible to one in the thick of it.
It would be a mistake to say that there are not shafts of light that pierce the dark night – many moments of laughter, of profound joy as we prepare to embrace the mystery that is this child, that is parenthood. But it is joy that lives in the hollow of a crucible, in a place where layers of dross rise to the surface in the boiling heat and are skimmed off, in a place where we find the ends of ourselves again, and again, and again. And we know: we have deeper yet to go.
Perhaps these ends, these peelings away will increase our capacity for joy. Perhaps in coming to these ends we will learn to lean more fully into our invisible God, and come to know what it means to draw on His strength instead of defaulting to our own. Perhaps we will taste the faith the ancients did when they reasoned God could raise the dead and so held knives over their only children, when they stood in the blast of heat from a fire meant to incinerate their flesh and said, God can save us. But even if He does not, we will not bend the knee.
01 August 2010
the wind and the waves
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| into the storm ahead by kirsten michelle (2010) |
One thing that many Christians I know have done a lot of (and I can say this because I am one, because I have heard this a lot, and because I have been so ingenious as to do it myself -- repeatedly) is take real life historical accounts from Scripture out of context and turn them into something entirely metaphorical. The flesh and blood people who lived these stories become mere characters, and the events that take place in these vignettes of their lives are symbols for us to interpret and apply as broadly and as personally as we like.
The story to which I am about to refer is a classic example, and arguably the most common story where this takes place. Here's the synopsis: Jesus is in a boat with his disciples, and a terrible storm comes up that is tossing the boat. The disciples are afraid for their lives. And what is Jesus doing? He is asleep in the back of the boat. Asleep, mind you. While everyone else is afraid of drowning. It's not like the disciples were sissies about this kind of thing. No doubt they had seen a few storms in their day. But this was no small storm. It was not just a few white caps slapping against the sides of the boat here and there. The Gospel of Mark says that the boat was "nearly swamped." And Jesus is asleep (now that is some kind of tired!).
So the disciples wake Jesus up and ask Him what He's going to do about it. After rebuking the wind and the waves, He rebukes the disciples. "Do you still have no faith?" He asks, to which the disciples respond, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
What I have heard people say about this passage (and what I have written in the margins of this passage in the Bible I used during my teen and college years) is this: Jesus is in control of the storms of my life.
This makes me cringe now. The gospel writers had a purpose for including the stories that they did; there was something each piece of their respective accounts was meant to communicate. And I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that what Mark wanted his audience to know was not that Jesus is in charge of the storms of life, but that He is God, who has sovereign command over nature. In fact, I think the disciples' statement at the end perfectly communicates the point of that story: Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!
The boat is not a symbol for my life, and the wind and the waves do not represent trial and tribulation. To put it simply, they are exactly what they say they are. The wind and the waves the disciples were afraid of were (get this) actual wind and waves. And they were real people in a real boat on a real lake, and they were really afraid of literally drowning in real water.
And in the midst of that, it is demonstrated: Jesus has the ability to command nature. Jesus is really God.
None of this is to say that it's not true that our lives can become rather turbulent and stormy. And it's certainly not to say that Jesus, as God, doesn't have command over those things too. But if I go straight for the symbolic meaning, I miss the real, the concrete, the nitty-gritty reality. I miss the truth that I can sink my fingers into -- and, in fact, the very truth Mark wanted to communicate.
It may be difficult to tell in the picture above, but I was facing a sky that was brewing up a terrific storm. On our last night in Kansas, I got to experience one of the fantastic Midwestern storms I had only ever heard about. Thunder ripped and bellowed across the entire landscape and made the earth reverberate under my feet. Lightning flashed not in the dramatic forks that make for prize-winning photographs, but in broad flashes that lit up the entire sky so that for a brief moment, it was bright as day. Wind blew, and thick and heavy drops of rain pelted the earth.
I was in awe. My God has supreme reign even over all of this. There was something so magnificent and powerful about that display, and even more magnificent was the knowledge that He held this storm under His thumb.
Incredible.
With such power as this, surely He must have reign over all of nature, including something so tiny and magnificent as a baby with a broken heart. And even if He appears to be for the moment (metaphorically speaking, of course) "asleep in the boat of my life" -- not making a sound -- then perhaps I should act as the disciples should have in that moment. Trust Him, and have the faith that He will see us safe to the other side of the lake.
26 July 2010
kansas :: four
I almost missed this one.
We were going back through the shots of the birthday party after I had already pronounced myself finished processing them (it's just a reality that when you take nearly 500 pictures of an event, you have to be choosy as to which ones are given the special treatment). And I saw this one. I was drawn to the energy and the much-younger version of myself I saw in it.
We were going back through the shots of the birthday party after I had already pronounced myself finished processing them (it's just a reality that when you take nearly 500 pictures of an event, you have to be choosy as to which ones are given the special treatment). And I saw this one. I was drawn to the energy and the much-younger version of myself I saw in it.
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| jump like you mean it photo by kirsten michelle (2010) |
This is Dacia, our niece. She's the one on the diving board, arms thrown back, knees bent, poised to jump, daring the water. She's not scared of jumping in, she's not hesitating, and she's not being quiet about it.
Once upon a time, this could have been me. This picture spoke to me and made me wonder so many things: about what happens as we get older that makes us scared and hesitant and too practical for our own good, about how we start to be afraid of the water instead of daring the water to be afraid of us. Somewhere along the way, I stopped throwing my arms back and jumping in. Somewhere along the way, I became the type of person to dip my toes in first, to slide into the water gradually and let myself acclimate to the temperature instead of making a splash.
I became the type of person who cared if her hair got wet. What the heck?!
I'm not talking about becoming irresponsible, but living with passion and abandon and enthusiasm, of taking some calculated risks, of giving something your all -- of daring the water to be afraid of you. Because you're fierce. Because you are a force to be reckoned with. I know how the ability to live this way is lost; what I'm more concerned with is how I get it back.
I really want to know your thoughts on this:
Do you feel like this has happened to you at any point in your life (losing your ability to "jump right in")? What does this look like? Have you made changes in any area of your life that allow you to live this way? Any stories, anecdotes, experiences, or insights you have in this regard are welcome here.
02 July 2010
looking up
There are a lot of things wrong with the world. On a much smaller level, there are many things about our life right now that I would change, had I the power to do it. James would have a job -- preferably one that brought in a decent income and didn't drive him nuts (ooh, and that has good benefits). The price of oil would be up and the wells in which we're invested would be top producers. My baby wouldn't have a heart defect.
As hopeful as I am about each of these things, as much blessing as I've experienced in the course of things being exactly as they are, I still have my moments where I just want to wave a magic "fix it" stick and have it all be
I had a very honest moment with Jesus today in which I told Him just that. That sometimes I'm tired of it and just want a break. That as glad as I am that what we're going through means He's loving us and disciplining us toward holiness, sometimes I just wish it could all be the way I want it to be -- in truth, even though the reality of it completely disgusts me -- a little like a gospel of prosperity: if you love Jesus and obey Him, He will give you health and wealth and the American dream to boot!
I know it doesn't work that way. And on many levels, I'm deeply and profoundly thankful that it doesn't.
These thoughts got me to wondering: say things really did turn out the way I wanted. Say Ewan was miraculously healed (or, the doctors said, "Oops, sorry, we had the wrong baby!"), James had the perfect job, and everything was peachy. Say everything in my life had been this way: no challenge, no troubles, no resistance. What would I be like? Would I have any depth or strength or character? Would I care about the things I care about? Would I even be me?
I have a strong suspicion that without any kind of resistance in my life, without trials, hardships, whatever you will call them -- I would be vapid and shallow, disinterested and entirely uninteresting. I couldn't relate to anyone. I just might be the kind of person, who when she heard the poor had run out of bread to eat would say: "Then let them eat cake!" (which, by the way, Marie Antoinette didn't really say either).
What's true of our bodies is true of our spirits, our souls, our whole persons as well: strength is built when an opposing force is resisted. I've written about this before. Just like strength of body, strength of spirit doesn't "just happen" either. Someone who lounges on the sofa eating Doritos all day cannot expect to have a toned and muscled body, and neither can a spiritual couch potato expect to be a saint, or to achieve the holiness Christ desires for us. Previously, I wrote this:
Make no mistake: getting stronger hurts. It is a slow process. If we look at this from a physiological point of view again, getting stronger requires that we deliberately engage our muscles against the weight we are lifting. It requires that we repeat the motion of lifting or pressing, engaging our muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. In so doing, muscle fibers are broken down ... In the days of rest that follow, the fibers are built back up, stronger than they were before. And we do it again and again.Ouch. Yeah. Good reminder to myself.
The funny thing about all this is is that when I write, I tend to put the stronger stuff out there: the things that I can reason and know, sometimes at the expense of what I actually feel. But the truth is, oftentimes they butt up against each other, like two boxers with gloves braced, and I wonder if one reality might punch the lights out of the other. And sometimes I get stuck between them, feeling the push and pull from both sides.
This is when I need to be reminded to look up: look up to our High Priest -- the one Who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, the one Who was tested just as we are. This is when I need to be reminded what it's all for. I need to remember that if I'm to run a good race, I will get tripped up if I spend too much time looking down at my feet, or veer off course if too much time is spent looking over my shoulder. I need to look up. And when I tire, wishing I could know what and how and when -- this is when I need to remember that I will never know what and how and when (maybe not even in retrospect), but I do know Who.
Jesus. One foot in front of the other, breathing His name with every step.
photo taken by james // processing by me
22 June 2010
ruthless trust :: number three
This is where (as far as I can see) the rubber meets the road: trusting God when in the face of unspeakable hurt and suffering. These, on the road of trust, are the speed bumps, the detours, and the road blocks. These are the things that make us wonder if we should turn ourselves around and go back to where we came from.
When the doctor calls and it is cancer. When the job is lost. When the house burns to the ground. When another miscarriage is suffered. When there aren't two pennies to rub together. When a spouse says "I don't love you anymore."
We are, each one of us, wounded. Let us behold Him together. Perhaps there will be no answers found there that will satisfy our questioning, but maybe -- just maybe -- we will catch a glimpse of His face.
When the doctor calls and it is cancer. When the job is lost. When the house burns to the ground. When another miscarriage is suffered. When there aren't two pennies to rub together. When a spouse says "I don't love you anymore."
I believe that these are the kinds of moments that shape and begin to define trust in us.
That being said, there is not much else I can say that is not going to sound small and trite in my own mind. Megan, the author of a blog I've been following recently (referred to me for the similarity of their circumstances and ours), lost her son this past week. Baby Cohen, like Ewan, was diagnosed with multiple heart defects in the womb. And at just ten or eleven days old, his earthly life has ended. He never left the hospital, never got to breathe the open air. He never had a life that wasn't connected to tubes and wires.
I know it wouldn't make it hurt any less if I got the answer, but I still ask "why"? I know these things happen and that God is still God in the face of it, but it still shakes me when they do. I still maintain that God is good and can bring good even out of the most inexplicable suffering, but sometimes it is through gritted teeth.
Manning doesn't pretend to offer any easy answers either. In fact, he stands with the reader in the questioning:
"The ubiquitous presence of pain and suffering -- unwanted, apparently undeserved, and not amendable to explanation or remedy -- poses an enormous obstacle to unfailing trust in the infinite goodness of God. How does one dare to propose a way of trust in the face of raw, undifferentiated heartache, cosmic disorder, and the terror of history?
"Any Christian writer who ignores these grim realities or dismisses them as inconsequential is either naive, dishonest, or disconnected from the trust-busting anguish of many struggling seekers and believers."
Ruthless Trust, p. 39
Trust-busting anguish: truly spoken. I'm not sure that anyone will ever make sense of the great suffering and evil we witness and experience in this world as long as we are this side of heaven.
But Manning leaves us with this, too: "Anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded." It is something, but I imagine this truth is cold comfort to a mother who gave birth to and said goodbye to her baby in the space of two weeks. If we're honest, I think we can hold both of these truths: understanding that God will use this for good beyond anything we can imagine, and that there's a grieving mother in Texas who just wants to hold her baby.
So where do we go from here? Our friend Brennan does have a suggestion, and that is to "gaze on the vast, unbounded ocean of the glory of God." He continues, "Irenaeus, a disciple of the apostle John, becomes our guide in his five-volume work Against the Heresy of Gnosticism. The oft-quoted first clause of one compound sentence reads, 'The glory of God is the human being fully alive.' But the less-quoted second clause reads, 'and the life of the human consists in beholding God.'" (p. 48)
We are, each one of us, wounded. Let us behold Him together. Perhaps there will be no answers found there that will satisfy our questioning, but maybe -- just maybe -- we will catch a glimpse of His face.
16 June 2010
ruthless trust :: number two
Gratitude. At first blush, I didn't understand what the relationship between trust and gratitude could be. But that's precisely what Manning talks about in the second chapter of Ruthless Trust. I don't want to spoil the book for those of you who haven't read it and want to, but so much of this is too good not to share!
Manning explains, " ... the person with an abiding spirit of gratitude is the one who trusts God.
And he continues, "The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness. Gratitude arises from the lived perception, evaluation, and acceptance of all of life as grace -- as an undeserved and unearned gift from the Father's hand. Such recognition is itself the work of grace, and acceptance of the gift is implicitly an acknowledgment of the Giver." (pp. 24-25)
I love how he doesn't waste any time, but goes straight for the jugular vein of your soul.
I considered this is relationship to our present circumstances. Over the last four or so weeks, I have experienced many moments of profound gratitude. I woke up early this past Saturday morning, just as the light was starting to creep through the blinds of our bedroom window. My husband was asleep beside me, and I put my hands on my belly and felt Ewan squirming around in there. I looked around the bedroom of our new apartment, a space for which we have a profound appreciation (if you had seen our first apartment, you'd understand) and considered the mountains rising up outside, veiled by the bedroom blinds, covered in evergreen trees. This place is so quiet, and feels so far away from the things that make people stressed, harried, and anxious. In that moment, I was deeply grateful for everything right around me: for a man who loves me more than I knew was possible, for this baby who is uniquely ours, for where we live, and for every painful and blissful experience that brought us to this place. All things considered, I knew in a deep, deep way how profoundly blessed we are.
And I was so grateful.
But honestly, I have had moments where I've done my share of grumbling, whether or not anyone has heard them out loud. I have had those moments where I lamented this was happening to us. I didn't want to be the exception. I didn't want people to pity us. I didn't want to give up the birthing experience I have hoped and planned for. I didn't want people to think, "Oh, poor Ewan!" Whine whine whine. Grumble grumble grumble.
I wasn't grateful for what was happening. I wasn't trusting the role this experience might play in something far greater, something that I do not have the foresight to see. I wasn't considering that blessings that will come and that, in truth, have already come as a result of what we have learned about Ewan's heart.
Manning quotes another favorite author of mine, the late Henri Nouwen from his work Bread for the Journey:
"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives -- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections -- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God."
Henri Nouwen, qtd. in Manning (p. 31)
And so I am grateful -- for James, for Ewan, and for his broken heart. I am grateful for what this little one is teaching me already. I am grateful for every moment of this pregnancy, for every kick and nudge and roll, for learning to feel and know acutely just how very delicate life is. I'm grateful for the support and encouragement that has been poured out on us. I'm so grateful that so many others love my little bean before he's even born. I'm grateful for the space I live in, for a place to write, and for the grace to know -- to really, really know -- that whether in the midst of profound ecstasy or excruciating pain (or anywhere in between), God is good.
Now it's your turn. Yesterday you told me about those things and moments in your life in which you learned to trust. It was such a gift to me to hear your stories and to learn from you how you've been shaped by those crucible moments in your life. And now I want to know: What are you grateful for right now? What makes you rise up and say thank you?
Manning explains, " ... the person with an abiding spirit of gratitude is the one who trusts God.
And he continues, "The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness. Gratitude arises from the lived perception, evaluation, and acceptance of all of life as grace -- as an undeserved and unearned gift from the Father's hand. Such recognition is itself the work of grace, and acceptance of the gift is implicitly an acknowledgment of the Giver." (pp. 24-25)
I love how he doesn't waste any time, but goes straight for the jugular vein of your soul.
I considered this is relationship to our present circumstances. Over the last four or so weeks, I have experienced many moments of profound gratitude. I woke up early this past Saturday morning, just as the light was starting to creep through the blinds of our bedroom window. My husband was asleep beside me, and I put my hands on my belly and felt Ewan squirming around in there. I looked around the bedroom of our new apartment, a space for which we have a profound appreciation (if you had seen our first apartment, you'd understand) and considered the mountains rising up outside, veiled by the bedroom blinds, covered in evergreen trees. This place is so quiet, and feels so far away from the things that make people stressed, harried, and anxious. In that moment, I was deeply grateful for everything right around me: for a man who loves me more than I knew was possible, for this baby who is uniquely ours, for where we live, and for every painful and blissful experience that brought us to this place. All things considered, I knew in a deep, deep way how profoundly blessed we are.
And I was so grateful.
But honestly, I have had moments where I've done my share of grumbling, whether or not anyone has heard them out loud. I have had those moments where I lamented this was happening to us. I didn't want to be the exception. I didn't want people to pity us. I didn't want to give up the birthing experience I have hoped and planned for. I didn't want people to think, "Oh, poor Ewan!" Whine whine whine. Grumble grumble grumble.
I wasn't grateful for what was happening. I wasn't trusting the role this experience might play in something far greater, something that I do not have the foresight to see. I wasn't considering that blessings that will come and that, in truth, have already come as a result of what we have learned about Ewan's heart.
Manning quotes another favorite author of mine, the late Henri Nouwen from his work Bread for the Journey:
"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives -- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections -- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God."
Henri Nouwen, qtd. in Manning (p. 31)
And so I am grateful -- for James, for Ewan, and for his broken heart. I am grateful for what this little one is teaching me already. I am grateful for every moment of this pregnancy, for every kick and nudge and roll, for learning to feel and know acutely just how very delicate life is. I'm grateful for the support and encouragement that has been poured out on us. I'm so grateful that so many others love my little bean before he's even born. I'm grateful for the space I live in, for a place to write, and for the grace to know -- to really, really know -- that whether in the midst of profound ecstasy or excruciating pain (or anywhere in between), God is good.
Now it's your turn. Yesterday you told me about those things and moments in your life in which you learned to trust. It was such a gift to me to hear your stories and to learn from you how you've been shaped by those crucible moments in your life. And now I want to know: What are you grateful for right now? What makes you rise up and say thank you?
15 June 2010
ruthless trust :: number one
I'm reading the Brennan Manning classic again: Ruthless Trust. This book was my companion during a particularly extended time of difficulty in my life a few years ago. Thumbing through its pages again, I can see the underlines, the brackets, the stars in the margins, and the copious notes filling what was once white space. It is quite nearly a journal of that time. I am filling it again, having learned something about God and myself, and now walking a path where I'm being asked to go deeper, learning even more of the deep wisdom of trust.
The following quotes grabbed me firmly around the soul:
The basic premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials. Through the indescribable anguish on Mount Moriah with his son Isaac, Abraham learned that the God who had called him to hope against hope was eminently reliable and that the only thing expected of him was unconditional trust. The great old man models the essence of trust in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: to be convinced of the reliability of God.
Page 9
The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.
Pages 12-13
And that's only from the first chapter.
If you haven't had a chance yet, I'm now also sharing Ewan and pregnancy-related updates over at the Team Ewan blog, and just generally journaling about this whole process.
And now I'm wondering, dear community of bloggers: When and how have you learned trust? If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear your stories too.
The latest belly shot:
I would just embed it in the post, but Blogger is being funny about it. And by funny, I mean exceedingly aggravating. So you can view the latest belly shot here.
The following quotes grabbed me firmly around the soul:
* * *
The basic premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials. Through the indescribable anguish on Mount Moriah with his son Isaac, Abraham learned that the God who had called him to hope against hope was eminently reliable and that the only thing expected of him was unconditional trust. The great old man models the essence of trust in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: to be convinced of the reliability of God.
Page 9
The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.
Pages 12-13
And that's only from the first chapter.
* * *
If you haven't had a chance yet, I'm now also sharing Ewan and pregnancy-related updates over at the Team Ewan blog, and just generally journaling about this whole process.
And now I'm wondering, dear community of bloggers: When and how have you learned trust? If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear your stories too.
* * *
The latest belly shot:
I would just embed it in the post, but Blogger is being funny about it. And by funny, I mean exceedingly aggravating. So you can view the latest belly shot here.
02 June 2010
keeping it real & raw.
I wonder if I'll regret writing this with all this hanging around me, the ink still fresh and wet on this news, the unfolding reality giving rise to an exponentially increasing number of questions, as well as new and complex feelings. My emotional landscape is changing constantly and dramatically, ranging from sharp peaks to deep valleys with a few muddied level places in between. At a time like this, everything feels volatile, and change is the only thing that is a constant. None of it feels real.
Yesterday's fetal echo confirmed what the first doctor suspected. I'm not going to name the diagnosis here because I don't want it to show up anywhere on a Google search (even if it's the 10,394th page listed). There is a whole range of fetal heart defects that exist, and this one exists on the side of the range that, if your baby has to have a heart defect, you definitely don't want to land on. It is severe. There are holes in places there shouldn't be. There are vessels a mere fraction of the size they need to be.
Unless a miracle happens between now and his birth, Ewan will be spending the first weeks of his life in a hospital. He will need multiple tests and operations to deal with these abnormalities. Defects. Whatever you want to call them. Whatever the label, I hate them.
I can't tell you how much it hurts to know that I won't be able to take him home with us. That I will need to leave the care of my midwives more than halfway through my pregnancy and deliver in a hospital. That within hours of his birth, he will be transferred to a different location while I recover from labor and delivery. That in his first weeks of life, I will need to get in my car and drive to the hospital to see him, to touch him. That after he's born, he won't immediately occupy the room we have set aside for him.
I know he will be well cared for. I know these steps will be necessary if he's going to live and thrive. I know we are fortunate to be so near a facility that can handle this, and that we live in a time where babies who wouldn't otherwise have a chance of making it can grow and thrive thanks to some extraordinary advances in modern medicine. I know there is nothing I could have done to change this. According to the doctor, these things "just happen." No one really knows what causes it, only that it's something that likely started within the first three or so weeks of my pregnancy.
None of this makes it any easier. Believe me, I wish it did. It would make things easier on all of us; we wouldn't be huddled and weeping in the corner, and you wouldn't be shifting in your seat, searching for the right words or wondering if it's okay to hug us. We are walking a path no parent wants to walk, and having to make choices no parent wants to make.
I know that our feelings will continue to shift, change, and evolve. I know we aren't the first to experience this. I know that we will experience substantial hope, and that we will find peace and laughter in unexpected moments. I know that our son is a gift and a blessing, and already a joy to his parents. But it still hurts in a way no earthly tongue can describe, and only a supernatural and heavenly power can change or heal that.
This is a portion of what I wrote to my dear friend Christianne this morning:
Lord, have mercy.
Yesterday's fetal echo confirmed what the first doctor suspected. I'm not going to name the diagnosis here because I don't want it to show up anywhere on a Google search (even if it's the 10,394th page listed). There is a whole range of fetal heart defects that exist, and this one exists on the side of the range that, if your baby has to have a heart defect, you definitely don't want to land on. It is severe. There are holes in places there shouldn't be. There are vessels a mere fraction of the size they need to be.
Unless a miracle happens between now and his birth, Ewan will be spending the first weeks of his life in a hospital. He will need multiple tests and operations to deal with these abnormalities. Defects. Whatever you want to call them. Whatever the label, I hate them.
I can't tell you how much it hurts to know that I won't be able to take him home with us. That I will need to leave the care of my midwives more than halfway through my pregnancy and deliver in a hospital. That within hours of his birth, he will be transferred to a different location while I recover from labor and delivery. That in his first weeks of life, I will need to get in my car and drive to the hospital to see him, to touch him. That after he's born, he won't immediately occupy the room we have set aside for him.
I know he will be well cared for. I know these steps will be necessary if he's going to live and thrive. I know we are fortunate to be so near a facility that can handle this, and that we live in a time where babies who wouldn't otherwise have a chance of making it can grow and thrive thanks to some extraordinary advances in modern medicine. I know there is nothing I could have done to change this. According to the doctor, these things "just happen." No one really knows what causes it, only that it's something that likely started within the first three or so weeks of my pregnancy.
None of this makes it any easier. Believe me, I wish it did. It would make things easier on all of us; we wouldn't be huddled and weeping in the corner, and you wouldn't be shifting in your seat, searching for the right words or wondering if it's okay to hug us. We are walking a path no parent wants to walk, and having to make choices no parent wants to make.
I know that our feelings will continue to shift, change, and evolve. I know we aren't the first to experience this. I know that we will experience substantial hope, and that we will find peace and laughter in unexpected moments. I know that our son is a gift and a blessing, and already a joy to his parents. But it still hurts in a way no earthly tongue can describe, and only a supernatural and heavenly power can change or heal that.
This is a portion of what I wrote to my dear friend Christianne this morning:
I am jealous of every parent who's never gotten bad news, of every parent who has had a healthy, normal baby, of those who have never had to navigate this path, of those who have not had to weigh the sometimes tremendous cost of choosing life when its beginning looks so bleak and challenged. I've heard some of the traditional platitudes that inevitably come forward in the speech of those who mean well: things like "God doesn't give us anything we can't handle." Pardon me, but what a load of bull. Maybe He allows these types of trials precisely because He already knows we can't handle it -- that we would need to lean on Him chiefly, that all our dependencies would be on Him and not on what we could do, that we would humble ourselves and ask for help from those friends and family that surround us and stand with us. If there's one thing James and I are strikingly aware of, it's how completely helpless we are in this place. We can do nothing to effect the change we desire.And so here we are, at the head of a path we did not expect, wondering what kind of story will be told in the steps we take.I'm confident of God's infinite love for this little boy. I know His heart for children. I know this news does not surprise Him. Sometimes this knowledge is a tremendous comfort, and at others, it makes it all the more difficult to reconcile with the truth that I'm waking up in a world where babies are born with severe heart defects and don't get to go home with their parents after they're born. And somehow, inexplicably, the world keeps turning and the birds keep singing when the sun comes up.
Lord, have mercy.
19 April 2010
becoming catholic: part 6
Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.
Read Part 4 here
Read Part 5 here
Note: You can also click on the "Becoming Catholic" icon above to see the entire series
* * * * *
There are so many places I could go from the places in my journey I've already covered. I could go into the primacy of Peter and his seat, I could talk about the Catholic teaching on justification, or any number of other Catholic doctrines. Studying these things changed and shaped my view of the Christian faith and were deeply transformative along the journey. And no doubt about it, these issues are substantial when it comes to matters of the Christian faith.
I could explain to you even more of what I learned, but I'm not sure that is the most beneficial. If you really are curious, I could point you in the direction of resources that were helpful for me and not at all to difficult to digest and understand, or send you the drafts that I've written on these things (I'm not quite done with the one on Peter and his seat, and it's already at five pages single-spaced. Yikes). As much as these things changed me, I'm not sure I want to write essays aimed at proving some Catholic doctrine or another. You can get better material than I can produce elsewhere.
So for now, I thought I'd focus on some of the key things that drew me to the Church. These things, beyond assenting to them intellectually, pulled me and drew me in. These are the things that appealed to me. I'll be doing a fair amount of comparison with my experience as a Protestant. Keep in mind that when I speak of my experience of evangelical/Protestant Christianity, that's what it is limited to -- my experience. Depending on variations in background, denomination, and so on, someone else may claim a very different experience. If that's the case, that person is free to write his/her own blog post about it. Amen.
The Sacraments
Where I had grown up with only two ritual practices (baptism and communion), there are seven sacraments in the Catholic church. In truth, I'm not sure I ever heard these referred to as "sacraments" in the Protestant tradition in which I was raised. In addition to baptism and communion (or, the Eucharist), Catholics have the sacraments of confession (also called "reconciliation"), marriage, holy orders, confirmation, and anointing of the sick. Each of these could have a rather lengthy blog post about its significance, so I'll just touch on how some of these sacraments drew me.
What's a sacrament?
I'm so glad you asked! The following definitions are from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):“Christ now acts through the sacraments he instituted to communicate his grace. The sacraments are perceptible signs (words and actions) accessible to our human nature. By the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit they make present efficaciously the grace that they signify.” (CCC 1084)
“Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies.” (CCC 1127)
Engaging the SensesBaptism
I was baptized when I was 14 years old, so it was not necessary for me to be baptized again. The Catholic church recognizes baptisms from other Christian churches that employ the trinitarian form (i.e., "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"). It was affirmed to me repeatedly that I was already one with the Church in my baptism.
Eucharist (Holy Communion)
Oh, how I love the Eucharist!! This one really could take up volumes. Without getting into the finer theological points of it, I grew up in a church that believed communion is a memorial meal: a remembrance of the death of Christ (depending on the Protestant tradition in which one worships, there are variations on this belief). I think the most we ever had communion was once a month. Catholics believe in the real presence; that is, once consecrated, that the bread and wine become by the power of the Holy Spirit the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. Catholic believers everywhere are united in sharing the body and the blood, able to take in and assimilate Christ's body in a physical way.
This may sound odd or even sacrilegious to some -- I know it did to me the first time I heard of such a thing. But read Christ's discourse with the disciples in John 6; observe the behavior of those who leave, offended at His command to eat His flesh and drink his blood (the Greek word for "eat" in this passage literally means to gnaw on, or to chew). It's interesting to me that many who insist on reading the Bible literally make a particular exception for this passage. Considering the response of those present, it seems certain to me that Christ was, in fact, speaking literally.
Confession (or, Reconciliation)
This one, believe it or not, was a tremendous draw for me. I know that a common objection is Why can't you just go to Jesus? A man can't forgive your sins! And the truth is, a man in his own authority cannot forgive your sins. But in John 20, after His resurrection, Christ meets the disciples and breathes the Holy Spirit on them, giving them His authority to forgive or retain a person's sins. I've gone to confession. I've spilled my guts to the priest. I knew he wasn't going to hear anything from me that he hadn't heard already. And he nodded in understanding, and spoke the words of absolution over me. Remember the definition of the sacrament: it's a perceptible word or action that signifies and communicates the particular grace that is signified by the action taking place. In other words, the priest was, with the authority of Christ, communicating the grace of forgiven sin.These were sins I had acknowledged in prayer and with contrition before Christ in private many times. But it was unbelievably freeing and healing to experience the hands of the priest cover me, affirming my sins are forgiven. I walked out of that place with a lighter step and such tremendous peace and joy. I heard the words aloud, I saw hands raised in blessing. I got to experience it in a very real and very present way.
I've already touched on this in describing what draws me about the sacraments, but one thing that really drew me was how all of one's senses are used in the Catholic church. In my experiences as an evangelical, much of my experience was distanced from anything tangible or concrete. Prayers of confession were silent; I always trusted I was forgiven, but I never heard an audible voice affirming that trust. I took communion when it was offered, but it was just supposed to draw me toward humility and to help me remember Christ's sacrifice -- something I had never seen or experienced. Conversion meant "asking Jesus into your heart and accepting Him as your personal Lord and savior." It was evident in these moments that the Spirit was moving deeply, no doubt. But I longed for something with which to engage, something I could touch, taste, and feel.
As a Catholic, I get to experience and worship Christ with all my senses. When I see Him hanging on the crucifix in the chapel, I'm reminded of His suffering and sacrifice on our behalf, and I'm reminded of the consequences of my sin -- I put Him there, but still He allows me to identify all my suffering with His; it is not without purpose. I sing and respond during the Mass, and I hear the priest speak the words of consecration that Saint Paul wrote, straight from 1 Corinthians 11. I use my body: I stand when the gospel is read, and I kneel when the Eucharist is being consecrated. During the high days, I smell the incense, our prayers rising to heaven. Each time I enter the chapel, I bless myself with the holy water, which serves to remind me of my baptismal promises: to reject Satan, all His empty promises, and to affirm my belief in God and His church. During the Eucharist, I receive in my own body the flesh and blood of Christ, which in taste and appearance are like bread and wine. In confession, I confess my sins and hear the words of absolution from the priest, who is acting in persona Christi. In other words, my physical reality becomes saturated with graces that are otherwise intangible. I can hear Christ, see Him, feel Him, taste Him, and smell Him in the Mass.
History & Apostolic Succession
More than just possessing a love of history, I longed for a church with history: a body that had its rootedness in tradition, and in the ways and teachings of the apostles. I grew up in non-denominational Christian churches. I learned to love Jesus there, I memorized Bible verses, and I participated as fully as I could. I never questioned the power of Jesus, nor the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Bible was read, the Bible was taught, and everyone I knew sought to honor Christ. We did community outreaches, we sponsored orphans, we fed the poor. There were so many things the communities of which I was a part did well.
But as I got older, I recognized that there were things missing from my experience of church that were in the Bible: the breaking of bread for as often as we met together, anointing the sick, or any kind of confession of sins (you know: to another human being ... out loud, like it says in James 5). Sometimes I got the impression sin wasn't really that big a deal because hey, Jesus is a nice guy and He's going to forgive you anyway. And it really troubled me that my church taught something a little differently than my friend's churches, like the significance and importance of baptism, for example. I thought the view my church taught made the most sense, but how did I know it was really the right one?
The need for real God-given authority became evident when in my post-college years, this church experienced something I never thought I'd see. One of the associate pastors was fired (the man who baptized me and my siblings), and in a way that violated the church's own constitution. The leaders responsible tried to backpedal and cover it up by asking for this pastor's resignation after the fact, but the damage had already been done. We knew what had happened. When confronted with this information, the leadership of the church proceeded to chastise my parents in their own home, fire my Dad from his part-time landscaping job there (this was accomplished by a note in his last paycheck), and we were told that if we didn't apologize for saying that we knew what was going on and that it was wrong, we would not be welcome at that church again. In good conscience, this is not something we were able to do.
This is the church I was born into. This is the church where my family had poured out blood, sweat, and tears for the twenty-some years we had been there. And what could we do? We had no recourse, no court of appeal. It was one of the most hurtful things we ever experienced as a family. And after it happened to us, we met many others who had experienced similar trauma at the hands of other Christian churches. Though I had no idea what it would look like at the time, I recognized that some kind of authority was necessary, someone to whom teachers and leaders in the church were accountable.
The Saints
I'd be lying if I said that the men and women whom the Church recognizes as saints weren't a draw. I have often heard, Why can't you just look to Christ? and that is true. We can look to Christ (and we should look to Him) as our chief example. But I have something in common with these men and women we call saints: they were not the incarnate Son of God. They were like me. They were ordinary people who lived extraordinarily holy lives in the face of many challenges, in the face of opposition, in the face of tyranny. Some of them were martyred, some of them helped give shape to many of the foundational doctrines of our faith. All were faithful to the risen Christ. And the truth is, through this "great cloud of witnesses" we can see the power of Christ working through rather humble and ordinary folk.
Saint Agatha is the woman I chose as my confirmation saint (click on the link to read a brief article about her). I chose her because like her, I want to profess my faith unflinchingly even in the face of opposition and ridicule. God forbid I should ever face the torture and mutilation she did on account of her faith, but I certainly hope that regardless of the circumstances, I might stand firm and faithful to the end as she did.
Not rushing through Good Friday
I was really looking forward to my first Good Friday as a Catholic. In the evangelical/Protestant churches I attended, there would be a Good Friday service, and I would always go. The service would include reflections on Christ's suffering and sacrifice, sometimes a graphic description or representation of what Christ endured. Inevitably, the service would end with a reminder of Easter Sunday.
While I knew Sunday was coming and what that meant, I often felt a loss at not being able to properly mourn what Jesus suffered -- I felt rushed into Sunday before Friday was even over. Yes, we all know He rose on Sunday. Yes, we know He was victorious over sin and death. Believe me, I want to run toward that empty tomb as much as anyone! But please, in the name of all that is holy, allow me this one day to mourn what my sin did to Jesus. Let me feel it, let me mourn Him, let me sit with this for awhile. Let me feel the weight of what my sin cost Him.
This year, I finally got that experience. When we walked into the chapel, the glass etching of the risen Christ that marks the entrance was covered in black cloth. The altar was bare of its customary linens. The crucifix at the opposite end of the chapel was draped in a large red cloth. And the font of holy water was empty.
The service was a couple hours long, in which the priest and a couple of other readers took turns reading the entire story of the Passion from the book of John. Near the start of the service, I prayed for tears, for the grace to be able to mourn truly the loss of my Savior. Never has a prayer of mine been answered so quickly!! Somewhere in the midst of the reading, I started crying. Just a tear streaming down here and there, until I was sniffling and stifling sobs, until the backs of my hands were wet and salty.
Near the end of the service, the priest and the deacon went to the back of the chapel to remove the red draping from the crucifix. One arm of the cross was exposed, and then the next, and then the whole covering was removed. We were all invited to meditate on what it meant to venerate (i.e., show reverence for) the cross. Everyone took turns coming forward, some kneeling, some standing, some bowing their heads as they whispered their prayers to Jesus. I had no idea what I would do when I got there, I was so overcome. But when when our turn arrived, I knelt down in front of that cross, bowed my head, touched those pierced feet and wept. I just wept. We weren't there long, but I got a chance to tell Jesus how sorry I was, just to look at Him and say thank you, to grieve the death He died and the shame He suffered on my behalf.
The experience was emotional and cathartic, but also something more. In a very substantial way, I was able to grieve my Lord, able to recognize the gravity of sin, and able to experience the most overwhelming and infinite love of a God who gave His Son as a ransom for sinners. I was in every way, on holy ground.
And you know what? That made Easter something I could really celebrate.
* * * * *
Note: I've decided to wrap up this series with my next post, in which I'll address some of the common questions/misconceptions I've confronted and do my level best to explain (as succinctly as possible) the answers to those things. Thanks to all of you who have hung in here with me and read my insanely long posts! You honor me, and I am humbled.
13 April 2010
becoming catholic: part 5
Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.
Read Part 4 here
Note: You can also click on the "Becoming Catholic" icon above to see the entire series
Note: You can also click on the "Becoming Catholic" icon above to see the entire series
* * * * *
A friend of mine from Hillcrest Church called me on the day before my Confirmation. "Is it true?", she asked. When I told her it was, she exclaimed, "O My God!" But I corrected her, "No, it's our God," and explained that I was still worshiping the same God whom I had worshiped together with her. Sadly, I was ostracized by many of my evangelical brothers and sisters. Some don't even speak to me anymore. Some canceled my speaking engagements. Some say I have "fallen;" others called it "a big mistake." But I know the big mistakes I have made in my life, and becoming Catholic was not one of them. I have no quarrels with anyone. Their view of me does not upset my peace of mind, although I am sad if they fail to realize that we do not have a "Methodist God" or a "Baptist God" or a "Catholic God." We have one God, who has revealed Himself in Christ and the Church, and who calls us all to the fullness of truth.
Norma McCorvey, in an interview regarding her journey toward becoming Catholic
* * * * *
Whew, it's been a long time since my last post!! I've been madly drafting both this installment and the next simultaneously, wanting to do all these things as much justice as I can muster. Given the level of activity that has taken place over the past week or two, and with carrying a baby that just doesn't seem to like anything I eat, I've been a bit delayed in getting this out there.
I hope my readers won't mind if just for this post, I deviate a bit from my explanations and understandings of the heftier theological issues and spend some time describing my subjective experience. I've included pieces of this along the way where appropriate, but I wanted this post to focus more on some of my personal experiences over the course of this journey.
It was easier me for to embrace Catholicism on an intellectual level prior to engaging it experientially. We talked about it a lot before we made any moves in that direction, so it was not as if I didn't know what was coming. But assenting to believe it intellectually and coming to bring myself to the Catholic church in actuality was a more difficult leap for me. James had attended a Friday morning mass at the church we now attend and talked to the priest, telling him our story. After that, there was no turning back. After acknowledging our belief, it would have been a serious sin for us not to behave accordingly.
My resistance to the change stemmed from the fact that my life had already seen some massive changes in a very short period of time: in the course of six months, I moved cities, changed jobs, went from a being satisfied single to becoming engaged, took a major international trip, and then got married. And then, just four months into our marriage, we were looking into becoming Catholic? How many major overhauls to my life could I take in such a short period of time?
Circumstances were slightly different for James. I had been raised in an Evangelical church, but he was raised Catholic. He was passionate in his Catholic faith, and once dreamed of being a writer for the Catholic church. He left the church when he was nineteen over some misunderstandings about what the church taught. To have left and then to be coming back about seventeen years later for him was humbling to say the least. Such a move would not have been made were there not tremendous conviction propelling us both in that direction.
If I could impress one point upon those who still object to our decision, or who regard it with skepticism, it would be that. More than a journey of the mind, or history, or of literature, this has been a journey or spirit, of faith, and obedience as well. We weren't seeking to separate ourselves from our Evangelical brethren. We weren't seeking to incite division or argument. Yes, we read and researched a lot. Yes, we discussed intense theological issues at length (and we still do). But how this really happened is that we had humbled ourselves before God repeatedly in prayer, asking for Him to lead us, asking for Him to open our hearts to Him so that we would be willing to go wherever He wanted us to be.
We asked Him for these things in good faith, trusting and believing that our Lord wants us ever nearer to Him, and abiding ever more closely in His will. The prayer was as simple as that. We weren't seeking another dramatic change, but God in His mercy led us to the place where we are now. And so in this process our consciences were formed, and our spirits transformed. St. Paul wrote in Romans regarding conscience that "whatever is not from faith is sin." And so it would have been sin not to follow our consciences and to disobey the faith given to us when the path was so clearly marked. After praying those prayers and God making the way clear, what are we going to say: Uh, sorry Jesus, I know I asked You to lead us, and that we would follow wherever You wanted us to go ... but, please not this! And thus, it has also been a journey marked by profound humility. We never in our wildest imaginings expected that these prayers would lead us into the Catholic church.
I remember the night before I attended my first mass at this particular parish. There was a lot on our minds, and I was a mess. The next day when I woke up, the mirror reflected the evidence. I looked like I had been beat up, my face pummeled repeatedly with merciless, unrelenting fists. The skin around my eyes was puffy and purple; I viewed the world through dark slits. My hair looked like I had been tearing at it, which for my state of mind the night before, I very well may have been.
I had been to a Catholic masses before, and so was not entirely unaccustomed to the standing and kneeling, the prayers and recitations, to the robes and the altar. I felt a bit awkward being in that environment again -- like being in a place where you understand the words, but aren't familiar with the customs -- but not uncomfortable or unwelcome.
There was a line in one of the hymns sung that day that grabbed us both; something about coming home. Unexpectedly, we both wept at the same time. Indeed, this was coming home for both of us in a way neither of us had foreseen or anticipated.
RCIA
I made the decision to begin the RCIA program at the church, as it was already underway. RCIA stands for Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, and is basically a catechesis, or religious instruction, for adults considering conversion. The class, more than 20 strong, had an amazing range of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and life experiences. There is much I could say about what I learned, what we discussed, and the phases of the 6-month process that is RCIA. Together we laughed, served the community, and delved deep into hot-button topics.
Suffice it to say, these experiences bonded us together in a way that I've never before experienced. Some were already baptized and some not; many had Evangelical/Protestant backgrounds like me, and some had little church background at all. We all had different stories of what brought us to the Church, and how we came to be there, but found commonality in the reality that we were all willing to turn life as we knew it upside-down for the sake of embracing what we believed to be true. We found Jesus there in a way we had never known Him before -- in a way we were not willing to give up.
I may write more about this experience since it was so formative and transformative for me and since I owe so much to those who journeyed with me. But for now, I wish to leave you with a handful of images from a day I anticipated and experienced with as much joy as my own wedding.
Easter Vigil
The culmination of our instruction together occurred at the Easter Vigil mass (the night before Easter) in which we were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. We watched, worshiped, and participated with joy in observing the baptism of those who had not yet been baptized. We all walked forward together with our sponsors to receive Confirmation (the strengthening of the gifts of the Holy Spirit), and finally to receive our first Eucharist. After months of coming forward with arms crossed to receive a blessing, it was with joy that I first received the body and blood of Christ.
Baptism
Confirmation
First Eucharist
With Fr. Bryan
I hardly know how to put into words the joy I've experienced in this, my homecoming. Like Norma McCorvey, I can affirm that I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. But becoming Catholic was not one of them.
23 March 2010
becoming catholic: part 2
Disclaimer: When it comes to matters of faith (and matters of Catholicism in particular), emotions run high. It is a topic on which many have strong bents, preferences, and biases and regarding which particular views are held strongly. In many circles, there is much in the way of fear, misinformation, and outright antagonism when the topic of Catholicism is broached. I do not claim to speak in any official terms about matters Catholic, I claim only to speak for my own experience and journey. That being said, things may be introduced or stated in this series of posts which directly impacted my decision to convert. The purpose of stating these things is not to exact judgment on anyone or to incite anger or division, but only to provide reasoned explanations for why I now freely and deliberately chose to become Catholic.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Definition of Terms Used in this Post:
Canon: The books of the Bible recognized by the Christian church as valid and inspired.
Reformation/Revolt: I use these terms interchangeably to describe the split of the Protestant church from the Catholic church (starting in 1517)
Deuterocanonical: Literally means, "alongside the canon". Describes the seven books of the Old Testament for which there were no original Hebrew texts. At least some of these were originally written in Greek and as such, were held in suspicion by Jewish religious leaders and later, by the Reformers as well. Some of these books have been found to have Hebrew originals in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The deuterocanonical books are: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (also called "Ecclesiasticus"), Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as portions of Daniel and Esther. These books are also often referred to as the "apocrypha" by Protestant sources.
Septuagint: The Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament. The translation occurred between the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, and contain the 46 books of the OT, including the deuterocanonicals.
Canon: The books of the Bible recognized by the Christian church as valid and inspired.
Reformation/Revolt: I use these terms interchangeably to describe the split of the Protestant church from the Catholic church (starting in 1517)
Deuterocanonical: Literally means, "alongside the canon". Describes the seven books of the Old Testament for which there were no original Hebrew texts. At least some of these were originally written in Greek and as such, were held in suspicion by Jewish religious leaders and later, by the Reformers as well. Some of these books have been found to have Hebrew originals in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The deuterocanonical books are: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (also called "Ecclesiasticus"), Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as portions of Daniel and Esther. These books are also often referred to as the "apocrypha" by Protestant sources.
Septuagint: The Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament. The translation occurred between the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, and contain the 46 books of the OT, including the deuterocanonicals.
* * * * *
It is a very dangerous thing when you becoming willing to ask: What if I am not as right about this as I think I am? What will happen when I honestly and openly examine another perspective on what I think I know? What if in finding what is true, I also find that what I once believed is lacking?
Gulp.
We both knew what we had to do.
When such questions are raised, a person has two choices. You can bury your head, ignore the questions, and hope that with neglect, they will slowly die away and that life will continue on as it has before. Or, you can persist in finding the answers, no matter what they are.
Gulp.
We both knew what we had to do.
"Roman Catholic Bibles" place the books of Tobit and Judith between Nehemiah and Esther and 1 and 2 Maccabees after Esther. The books of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon) and Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) are similar to the Book of Proverbs and are placed after the Song of Songs. The book of Baruch follows Lamentations. Eastern Orthodox scripture includes these books, too, and some Orthodox Bibles contain still others such as the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, and 3 Maccabees (with 4 Maccabees as an appendix).These books were not part of Hebrew scripture, but were included in all Christian Bibles until The 16th Century Reformation. The Reformers chose the shorter Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible (39 Books), thus paralleling the thought of Martin Luther who considered these other books "not equal to the Sacred Scriptures, but useful and good for reading."
-- From the ELCA website regarding their beliefs of Scripture, emphasis mine
The Canon of Scripture
Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. I had to read it more than once, as shocked as I was. The Reformers chose to omit seven books of the Bible that had been included since the days of the early church -- the very books of the Septuagint that Paul used in his travels when he won people to Christ -- because they deemed these books unequal to the other books of Scripture? These seven books weren't originally written in Hebrew, but did that fact make them somehow less inspired? We learned that not only did they omit these seven Old Testament books, but Martin Luther also seriously considered omitting New Testament texts such as Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation from the New Testament as well because he held such a low view of them. He termed James "an epistle of straw because it contains nothing evangelical" and of Revelation said, "I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it" and also added "to my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character."
What?
It seemed awfully presumptuous to me, to remove seven books of the Bible that had been accepted for sixteen centuries. As someone who has long held a high view of God's word, this did more than raise an eyebrow -- this was appalling. If it was indeed true that the Reformers used their own subjective judgment to decide that these seven books weren't equal to Scripture, this gave rise to several questions for me: By what authority were these books rejected? Since Scripture itself doesn't account for the books that should be in it, how was the Canon of Scripture formed in the first place, and who had the authority to decide this? What are the implications for us if the seven books that the Reformers omitted from the Old Testament are in fact Scripture?
Learning to see things from a different angle
This is where I had to question what I had been taught and what I had believed about Scripture, willing to admit that just maybe, it had been wrong. This is where I had to suspend my Protestant biases.
We had always heard from Protestant sources that the Catholic church added these seven deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent (which was held in the 16th century in response to the Protestant revolt), but what we found was quite the opposite, and we had the words of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America affirming this. These seven books were not added later, but had always been there and held as authoritative until the reformers had them removed. When the Canon of Scripture was formally defined in the 4th century by Pope Damasus I and was later confirmed by three official councils of the Church, these seven books were included.
So what kinds of material did Luther have removed? One of the books removed was the book of Sirach and in the days of the early church, had earned the nickname "Ecclesiasticus" (literally, "Church Book") since it was often used to catechize new believers. Maccabees contains ample additional detail of the martyrologies described in Hebrews 11, and also describes the establishment of the Feast of Dedication that we see in John 10. The early church and even the apostle Paul had relied upon these and the other books, and until Luther omitted them from his translations, the entire Church was using them.
As we looked into this even more, we were searching for any justifiable reason why the Reformers would have omitted so many texts. What evidence could they have that would lead them to believe that these works had not in fact been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? While I wanted desperately to believe in their best intentions, we found that Luther's own hand penned the reason. Luther explicitly decreed that his own will was sufficient for the removal of these texts, and for the addition of words not in the original text. He added the word "alone" to the text of Romans 3:28 so that it read: "For we hold that one is justified by faith [alone] apart from works of the law." The word alone is in none of the original manuscripts. Paul never put it there. When confronted on this matter, Luther's response was this:
... if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word "alone" (sola), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an ass are the same thing." Please do not give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about that word "sola" than simply "Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors." Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. (I will it, I command it; my will is reason enough).
Translated from Sendbrief von Dolmetschen, an open letter on translating by Dr. Martin Luther
In the meantime ...
Luther's own statements concerning his teaching and its results (available online through Google books)
Note about the video below:
This 10-minute video is very helpful in terms of gaining an overview about the formation of the Canon of Scripture, and the differences between the Catholic and Protestant canons. If your curiosity has been raised the least bit by what I've said here (or if you think I'm a heretic, or just completely off my rocker), I encourage you to watch it and to test for yourself the claims that are made. It is not meant to be an exhaustive resource, but does raise many good questions for those who are inclined to look deeper into the issues raised.
27 January 2010
to be hidden in Him
I'm not hiding from you, I promise. Well, OK maybe just a little.
Will it help if I distract you with pretty things?
Butterflies hand-painted on a delicate Japanese fan, perhaps?
A bright pink polka-dotted ribbon?
No then?
Well, I will say this:
I've entered into a deep mystery, I've been given a gift.
And I'm here hiding, thanking God quietly,
taking to Him my fears and freakouts,
wondering, pondering, resting, asking.
Hoping and praying, wondering and thanking.
Hiding, quietly.
18 January 2010
personal penitence
This poem/prayer has grown out of a personal confession that has been evolving over the last several days. My heart has been heavy with many cares and frustrations which seemed to have clogged the communication lines between earth and Heaven, at least for me. For some time, it's been difficult for me to pray at all. And now in the wake of what has transpired in Haiti (in which unanticipated demands were placed on all our hearts), it seems fitting to share it now.
The form is loosely based on one of the forms of the Penitential Rite, which takes place at the beginning of the Catholic Mass. I'm becoming increasingly thankful for the liturgy, which gives me fitting words when I have none of my own.
I am lean on faith
and heavy with excuse.
Lord, have mercy.
I feel the pull and the tug
of gravity
and of anxiety.
Christ, have mercy.
My belly and my heart
are filled with sighs,
the exhalations of unmet hopes
and of many disappointments.
Lord, have mercy.
I have only enough care
to know I don't care enough.
Christ, have mercy.
My heels are dry and cracked,
my fingers bleeding.
Lord, have mercy.
Pierce my heart
with the nails of the cross,
with the thorns of your crown.
Christ, have mercy.
Let the hot blood course over
these frozen stones
and render them supple flesh.
Lord, have mercy.
Please hear my refrain,
carried on the breaths of the saints
and on angel wings.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
The form is loosely based on one of the forms of the Penitential Rite, which takes place at the beginning of the Catholic Mass. I'm becoming increasingly thankful for the liturgy, which gives me fitting words when I have none of my own.
I am lean on faith
and heavy with excuse.
Lord, have mercy.
I feel the pull and the tug
of gravity
and of anxiety.
Christ, have mercy.
My belly and my heart
are filled with sighs,
the exhalations of unmet hopes
and of many disappointments.
Lord, have mercy.
I have only enough care
to know I don't care enough.
Christ, have mercy.
My heels are dry and cracked,
my fingers bleeding.
Lord, have mercy.
Pierce my heart
with the nails of the cross,
with the thorns of your crown.
Christ, have mercy.
Let the hot blood course over
these frozen stones
and render them supple flesh.
Lord, have mercy.
Please hear my refrain,
carried on the breaths of the saints
and on angel wings.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
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